Review of Horimiya

Come on. To be honest, I had high expectations for Horimiya, with so much praise and positive notes. But I didn't like it, I confess that I thought it was a weak novel, which could have worked very well, but ended up being poorly produced. (In this review there will be no spoilers) Hori is a pretty and popular girl, with good grades, but she has a secret for the school that she doesn't want her classmates to find out. Miyamura, a seemingly isolated and awkward boy without many friends, also has a secret he hides outside of school. The two end up getting to know eachother and interacting, discovering about their secrets, personalities, family relationships, among others, from that we follow their daily life together. However, Horimiya does not only encompass the relationship between Hori and Miyamura, but also that of other characters as well.

The animation is great. Enjoyable, with vibrant colors and a good quality, about that, I have nothing to complain about, really the character design and art combined a lot.
The soundtrack of the anime, is pretty average in my opinion, however, it fits the right moments. Sound is nice.

I found it all too fast. The socialization of the two, the way in which they quickly discover each other's secrets, something that is in the anime's synopsis, that is of interest to the viewer, is simply broken in the first few episodes. I know many liked the fact that there was no stalling, but I personally expected a long development in this regard. Although the beginning of the anime works average well compared to the final episodes.

Their romance, despite some scenes that are enjoyable to watch, with comedy sheets, still has many flaws. I found their development very fast, with a lot of information that normally doesn't cover any context, just to try to justify an ending that was actually just poorly done. Because of that, I ended up losing the essence of the couple, and really, I couldn't connect with Hori and Miyamura.

The relationship between the secondary characters in the series is even worse. Characters that simply fall in love without any acceptable development and explanation, that even you don't remember the names because they end up being insignificant. The anime wants to put a lot of information without justification, which ends up serving as nothing at the end. Several dramas, which if at least relevant and worked on, would be part of the context, but that didn't happen, so why do that? So many characters to put yourself in a story with only 13 episodes, among them, characters that disappear and appear simultaneously, it ends up then that you don't get attached to any of them. Many have said that this series breaks clichés, but in my view it didn't happen.

Horimiya isn't the worst thing in the world, I wouldn't say I would gladly recommend it, but I wouldn't say it's pathetic either. There are really cool scenes in the anime, but they were spoiled by poor development. It won't be very exciting, it won't be horrible either. Maybe you don't care too much about these critical details, and like the characters and the comedy. I haven't read the manga, but it should be better compared to the animation.